You are right and I agree, I wouldn’t make techno with a kazoo
But I guess my point was more to do with letting go of equipment once it starts to own you, once it starts to imprison you and give you stress. The constant cycle of purchasing and consumption can be exhausting and it’s important to not lose sight of why you have the machines - which in my case is usually to make banging techno. I have similar experiences to @subduct and I know my mental state is better and I’m more chilled when I have less gear. I’ve sold some amazing equipment (e.g. monomachine, machinedrum, Rytm, 0-coast, virus… the list goes on) and while I wish I still had some of those now, I don’t really regret it as I still have some amazing gear to play with. A lot of it is the fear of missing out and the collecting/hoarding tendencies, but once I got past that my relationship with my gear was much better.
These have all been big factors in me deciding change is needed. The last few things I bought in 21 I haven’t even used yet, just gone straight on to the next obsession/purchase, almost without thinking, not even interested in the thing that was all consuming while I was chasing it.
Still made some positive steps so far. Talking about it for a start, avoiding triggers like your setups and watch lists, reminder emails and the internet in general (forcing myself to stay offline a lot more). Downsizing, boxing up and selling are all good for me. I just have to avoid the extremes of masses of gear/no gear.
Got some hope about that thanks to this thread and the help people are willing to give, hope to find a way of giving back in the future.
Sold my maschine, hadnt used it in a year so it had to go, currently waiting for the eBay 1 quid listings to offload a bit more stuff, namely the mpc one, korg nano key, and a shed load of cabling and some other bits and pieces… that’ll leave me with push 2, my iPad and my serato controller, more than enough to do what I need…
The “your latest purchase” thread alone is pretty telling of some imbalance that is definitely not far from some kind of a mental disorder. Sorry to hear about your financial situation but if you haven’t even touched your instruments in months it sounds like you’ve got other things going on.
You don’t sound harsh at all but like a bit of a party pooper perhaps.
Not hating but rather agreeing with what you already said.
I mean this thread is for processing the sort of issues that I don’t think anyone is too proud of admitting to themselves anyways.
I could say that I’d love to go smiling at homeless people when I’m experience GAS but I just can’t find one in Finland, but that of course would be pretty tasteless so I wouldn’t do that…
Anyways, It seems like life isn’t perfect anywhere. Every place has it’s own problems that may be hard to see from outside.
Yeah, we agree on lots of things and see some things differently. That is v ok and conversations like these make life and interactions with people interesting.
I had a period of homelesness in the early 2000s in Finland. I never lived on the streets or anything like that but I was forced to move back to live with my parents for a few months as I lost my apartment due to unpaid rents for spending my money stupidly on gear and vinyl etc. I’m not proud of that period in my life, but been there, done that.
It’s been a long way from that dude who’d rather buy a new shiny toy instead of paying rent to a responsible adult with a mortgage and my own thriving business. One big step was meeting my current girlfriend who helped me get out of debt (not financially but made me work hard to be debt free), I’m very thankful to her for that.
understand and I bought a home last year so this year need to fund repairs/renovations, taxes and other costs. This happy nogear came at right time for me.
trying to imagine being limited to kazoo and triangle over here. i’d probably take that challenge, depending on whether effects are allowed. if not, it would be tough but still probably fun for at least a few minutes.
this reminds me of gregoire maret, who has devoted his life (i assume) to mastering chromatic harmonica. his stuff amazes me. he plays harmonica.
here’s another potentially inspiring video. this dude probably interviews tons of guitarists with extensive equipment then is flabbergasted talking with these folks who own one guitar and bass. mark has one pick. i love khruangbin’s music. the tone laura gets out of that knockoff bass with 8 year old strings is so smooth. once again, musicality, talent, groove, feel — and not gear — are what sets them apart.
maybe it’s different for electronic music, but i think it doesn’t have to be. it’s possible to create a lot with a little. by the same token, going deep with whatever gear you have will undoubtedly yield results.
ha… i also wonder if they consider their wigs as “gear.”
There has been some speculation whether selling gear is compatible with the spirit of NGNY. I recently read, in a book about ecological issues, that a person’s carbon footprint is roughly commensurate with the amount of money they spend. So, while selling an existing piece of gear conserves limited resources, the money earned on that sale, when applied to other goods and services, increases carbon expenditure. Following that logic, I suppose trading is more compatible with the spirit of NGNY.
I really love her playing. Very nicely in the pocket and a lovely style and tone but that’s not the whole story. The older the strings, the smoother the sound, also she plays it through an Ampeg stack and a compressor. That’s gear. I’ve read that that bass has lots of sentimental value, and that she is still going to get a better vintage bass…
at least in that video, she plays through a fender bassman + an identical backup. regardless, she has the touch. i could listen to her playing all day.
I’m kinda blown away by the new possibilities of sampling now that I just can choose which gear to sample and patch it in instantly. No need to reach into the back of my MPC to connect anything. No need to run the cables from anywhere.
For a long time I’ve thought of my MPC as a glorified drum machine and midi sequencer. I do my drums on it and use it as the hub of my whole setup. First I choose a vintage drum machine samplepack and then I just start programming, then I program a bassline on one of the built in synths or one of my hardware synths and then add some melodies. And then I’m happy. I have a short 4 bar loop that sounds almost like a snippet of a song. I never progress past that.
The reason for that is that I come from a band background. We had band rehearsals and everybody brought their own snippets to the table and then we started building on those. It was a lot easier making music when there were three of us deciding where to go next. I still do those snippets, but I have no one telling me are they any good or adding their own parts to them.
That - I feel - is the main reason why I’m stuck with my music hobby. Why I never get anything beyond those 4 bars done.
But this NNGY has started me experimenting on different styles of working and suddenly I realize that the MPC Live is a lot more than just a drum machine. I sampled some of the preset patterns from my Digitakt into the MPC and started building on those, adding effects and drums and stuff and in ten minutes I was really deep into a groove that had barely anything of the DT preset pattern in it left. I’ve never bothered with sampling other synths, it always feels like it downgrades their sound and makes them stagnant and not editable anymore, but wow, this is good stuff.
I feel like I’m opening new doors in my mind. Doors that for some reason have been locked for a long time. And that’s all thanks to this amazingly positive and helpful thread.
So to answer the question @Grate_expectations presented. What would I do if I was left with just an MPC and one synth. I’d be a very happy and productive individual.
MPC Live is all I need basically, that synth would be a great bonus though.
